Saturday, August 10, 2013

Shark Week!

In honor of Discovery channels shark week (and my slight obsession with it) I decided to bring some shark fun into the classroom.

I began our shark discussion by asking the children what they know about sharks. I am happy to report that they all had plenty of things to say and were very excited to learn more!

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Click here for this free shark writing template from Kidzone.The children were asked to write a sentence about their favorite type of shark. I had a stack of books about sharks that I invited the children to go through if they needed help deciding which one was their favorite. I explained to the children that by looking through books to find the answer to a question that they were doing research. I always try to introduce the children to new vocabulary that I know they will hear throughout their school career.

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Watercolor shark art!

For these beautiful pictures the children first made waves with crayons, then they used the blue and green watercolors to make the ocean for their shark, this crayon resist technique gave their oceans a very textured look. Next, they chose the stencil for the shark they wanted to create...as you can see the great white and the whale shark were the most popular. For the whale shark the children used black paper and a q tip with white paint to make the dots and for the great white they made their own details with colored pencils.

We made shark hats!

We had whale sharks, dwarf lantern sharks, lemon sharks, great whites and more!

We went on a shark parade and "swam" around the classroom!

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For a group art activity the children worked in pairs to make these 3-D sharks! Each child in the pair painted a side of the shark and then they worked together to help stuff the shark with newspaper. We made a few different types which are now hanging all around the classroom!

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We also learned a shark song to the tune of bingo. " I know a fish that swims in the sea with very sharp teeth...s.h.a.r.k, s.h.a.r.k, s.h.a.r.k. and shark is its name-o."